


this doesn’t look that much different from home

by aimerai



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: 5+1 Things, Alternate Universe - Fae, Light Angst, M/M, Magic, Multi, i don't KNOW folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-06
Updated: 2019-07-06
Packaged: 2020-06-02 07:50:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19437100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aimerai/pseuds/aimerai
Summary: Alex is born somewhere between a hope and a dream, made more of magic than of DNA. He’s not quite a changeling child, but the first time he watches Pinocchio, he cries and cries and can’t stop, until he feels like he’s going to throw up with each hitching breath. It feels too similar, and he’s always known what he is.Or, the moments that make a homecoming.





	this doesn’t look that much different from home

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [love_stella](https://archiveofourown.org/users/love_stella/pseuds/love_stella) in the [PuckingRare2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/PuckingRare2019) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> Any au for these boys that you can think of
> 
> Title from Richard Siken’s Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out

Alex is born somewhere between a hope and a dream, made more of magic than of DNA. He’s not quite a changeling child, but the first time he watches Pinocchio, he cries and cries and can’t stop, until he feels like he’s going to throw up with each hitching breath. It feels too similar, and he’s always known what he is. He’s the only one of his siblings who isn’t quite real, the odd one out. He doesn't know what his parents did or why they had him when they were still perfectly capable of having children the normal way. Doesn't know what they gave up, or if the debt is still unpaid, and doesn't care. He feels like he doesn’t belong, and he’d never tell anyone this, but he breathes a huge sigh of relief when he gets drafted to Rouyn-Noranda. It’s not close enough to home, and that’s always, always a relief. 

He doesn’t make it up the first year, but that’s okay. He makes it up his second year, and his shoulders untense as the distance between his family and him increases. It’s not that they don’t love each other, because they loved him enough to make him real, and he’s grateful for that. It’s just that he’s too different. People can see the magic on him, sometimes, even if they can’t usually tell where it comes from, and there are still threads of magic linking him to his parents, and it’s easier not to be bitter when he’s not home, where everything is always strained, talking around the reason of Alex’s existence. 

Alex knows who Jeremy Lauzon is, remembers him vaguely from the draft. He does not expect to be sought out by him, but that’s exactly what happens, cornered after practice by Lauzon and another defenceman--Myers, he thinks.

“Are you like me?” Lauzon asks, with fever-bright eyes and an intensity that feels dangerous, somehow. 

“Like you?” Alex asks, cocking his head, because he doesn’t know what that means, and when in doubt, it's always best to deflect.

His companion, the defenceman that Alex thinks is Myers, snorts. “Not everyone can see, Jer.”

It’s gentle, but it’s undeniably an admonition, and that’s what teaches Alex what he has to do. He doesn’t use magic too much, so he’s a little out of practice, but he was made somewhere between a hope and a dream. Magic is his birthright if he ever had one. Once he knows what he’s looking for, it takes him just the blink of an eye to do it. Myers has magic running through his veins, but only a trace. It’s his eyes that have power, shining when Alex looks the right way. Lauzon is coated in almost as much magic as Alex is, but it manifests differently. It’s in the details of his face, when you slide them apart and rearrange them, and in the core of him, surprisingly small at the heart of it all. 

“I don’t think I’m exactly like you,” Alex says, finally. “You’re a changeling, but I was already born like this.”

“So you _can_ see me,” Lauzon says, and he has two different smiles when Alex looks at him like this, one sharper than the other, both reassuring for different reasons. 

“Both of you,” Alex corrects.

Myers looks surprised first, and then alarmed. “There’s nothing fae about you, then.”

“No. You’re safe from me,” Alex says, firmly, and knows, that in the presence of someone fae-adjacent, he’s more or less vowed it. “I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“We won’t make you,” Myers says, his alarm fading like it was never there at all. Very self-possessed of him, but if he can see, then he has reason to be. It’s too dangerous to not have control of yourself, if you can see. 

Lauzon nods. “We just want to be friends. So you have someone to talk to, if you need to.”

Alex has never had that before, and they both have very sincere expressions. Alex has met those that can see him, but he’s never met a changeling before. He thinks Lauzon is not much of a changeling at all, and it would be nice to not have to hide, to have people who know he’s something else that won’t ask about it. He lets himself see them again as they are for humans, no shining eyes and no face unevenly pieced together.

“I’m Alex,” he says, finally, after a long pause where there’s two near identical, hopeful expressions fixed on him. It’s not his real name, but it’s a name nonetheless. 

“Jer,” Lauzon says, and it’s not his real name either, but it’s what Myers called him, and the two of them are close, so Alex has been let into some kind of inner circle, exclusive. It warms him, somewhere near where a heart would be.

“Phil,” Myers says, and his smile is more subdued than the beam that’s threatening to split Jer’s face open, but no less pleased. “We’re glad you’re going to be here with us.”

It’s the best of all of his ‘welcome to the team’ moments, and also the one that he has to keep secret, but he holds it tight to his chest. They wanted him as he is with the magic, not knowing exactly what he is but knowing that he’s something, and that’s more than he’s ever gotten anywhere else, not fraught with any kind of obligation for his existence, and he’ll take it.

* * *

“Your phone’s ringing,” Phil mentions, and Alex stiffens from his spot on Phil’s bed, sitting shoulder to shoulder with Jer and working through math homework. Jer’s relaxed his features, lessening the disconnect between how he actually looks and what he looks like to humans, and Phil is sitting at his desk, reading some book by an old dead guy for an English class. Or, he was, but now he’s looking at Alex’s phone, dumped on the side of the desk. Jer’s shoulder settles more firmly against Alex’s, comfort offered before he even had to ask for it, because apparently Alex telegraphs easily for the two of them, but he can’t bring himself to mind.

“Who is it?” Alex asks, and pretends his voice didn’t waver at all. 

“Your mother.”

Alex flinches, and Jer drops his pencil. They’re both looking at him, concerned, and Alex cannot explain this to them, will not explain this to them, doesn’t even want to explain this to them. Phil is human except that he can see what most can’t, and he loves his parents fiercely and unapologetically, calling them more than most of them do. Jer is not human, was traded for, but his family still loves him fiercely because he is theirs, and they accept him as he is, a part of their family. Neither of them have grown up like Alex has, where in his darkest moments, he wonders if he were just a mistake. Neither of them were bought, neither of them owe their existence like Alex does. He doesn’t want to pick up the phone, but he knows he has to. 

“I should answer it,” Alex says, through lips gone numb, because she should have no reason to call him now, and doesn’t make any move to get off of the bed.

“You don’t have to,” Jer says, and there’s a hand on his back, more comfort offered up unasked. Alex is so very glad that he agreed to be friends, has had no reason in the months since to renege, but this is the moment that cements it, that they have built something here.

“I should,” Alex repeats. 

Phil and Jer exchange a long look that Alex is too tired to read, but in the end, Phil throws him his phone. Alex stares at it, takes a deep breath, and then keeps holding it. He should answer, he knows, but. He’s just being stupid about this, so he bites down on his lip almost hard enough to draw blood and picks up.

“Hello,” he says woodenly, and tries not to let a bitter smile through. Had he been made of wood? Is he a puppet brought to life? He still hates Pinocchio. He knows he’s born somewhere between a hope and a dream, but he doesn’t know what that means, doesn’t know what form it takes.

“Hello, Alex,” his mother says. He does love her; he exists in part because of her, because she wanted badly enough, but he doesn’t want to do this, to be on the phone with her while he’s with people who don’t place obligation on him. He loves them better than he loves her, he thinks, or he will.

“Is it urgent?” Alex asks, his voice still clinical. Jer’s arm tightens around his shoulder, and Phil is watching him with eyes that see too much. This is the first time that Alex has thought that he might resent it, because it isn’t that kind of seeing, but Phil can still be too perceptive for his own good.

“No,” his mother admits. “Are you busy?”

“I’m working on homework. I have a study group,” Alex says. He’s not busy, but he doesn’t want her interrupting this; he wants her far away from whatever he’s building here. Perhaps just the two people who know the most about him, period. 

“You’re not going to be here for your birthday,” his mother says, the slightest pause before she says the word ‘birthday,’ almost undetectable except that Alex had been looking for it. “I wanted to talk about it.”

“I’ll call you later,” Alex promises, and knows he’ll have to, saying the words in the presence of Jer. 

“Okay,” his mother says, and she sounds pleased about something, like Alex has given up some kind of ground. “Love you, mon cher, I’ll talk to you soon.”

He can’t say the words back, a lump stuck in his throat. “Bye, Mama,” he says instead, and hangs up.

Phil and Jer exchange another one of those long looks, where they hold a conversation with their eyes alone. They can’t talk telepathically like Alex might be able to make happen, but it comes from them knowing each other so well. 

“I think we should take a break,” Phil says, softly. “We can play a couple rounds of something.” He doesn’t ask if Alex is okay, and Alex is abruptly so, so grateful. 

“I vote for a game where we can shoot people,” Jer says brightly, and Alex can’t help his laughter, knowing that Jer is saying it for his benefit. Alex is so lucky, and they’re both blessings, something in both of them relaxing when he laughs, and he’s not sure that he deserves this, but he’ll do what he can to make himself worthy.

“Thank you,” he says, and is met by two smiles, warm as anything. He’ll tell them, one day. Maybe even one day soon.

* * *

Phil has a concussion, and the rage that licks through Alex is stunning in its ferocity. His magic is unsettled, leaping out of him in bounds, changing things, and when Jer gets back, he doesn’t look at all surprised to see Alex’s magic out of control. Alex had been equally bad when Jer cut his neck, but there was much less urgency. Jer is more resilient, and Alex was actually there, knew almost immediately that Jer would be okay. With Phil, he has none of that.

“What happened?” Alex hisses, from where he’s been lying in wait in Jer’s bedroom. His magic sparks brighter with the words, and Alex should really get that under control, but he hates feeling useless, and Phil has never seemed so human.

Jer shrugs. “I don’t think it was magic. I think it might have been bad luck.”

“Bad luck is a type of magic,” Alex says, because it’s true. He’s done it before, too, usually only petty, small things, because bad luck made big is the kind that would give someone a concussion, and it’s dangerous. Alex doesn’t think he particularly wants to hurt people, but he’d hurt people for Phil and Jer, no questions asked, and that’s part of the reason why his magic is sparking up like this, struggling to find an outlet where it can do something. 

Jer cocks his head, and he feels more changeling than he usually does, his edges worn down by the human family that loves him so much. Right now he feels wild, and fierce, and unforgiving. “I know. I don’t know what happened, Alex. We’ll go see him together tomorrow.”

“Promise?” Alex asks, even though he doesn’t need it, knows Jer keeps his word. 

“Promise,” Jer says, and rubs a hand over his face, still more wild than not. 

“I can help,” Alex offers, because he can see what Jer is trying to do, turn himself back. 

Jer looks so grateful, and all Alex has to do is run a sparking finger over Jer’s face, from the top of his forehead down the middle of his face, following the line of his nose, bisecting his parted lips, and he’s human again, or as human as he ever looks. His eyes are still very, very dark, and his lips are still parted, and Alex did that to him. He’s not human, he doesn’t think, but he still feels want.

“How did you get in here?” Jer asks, and Alex doesn’t think he’s imagining it, how his voice sounds rougher. “No one told me you were here.”

Alex looks from his still sparking hands to Jer, and tries to look unimpressed. “No one actually knows that I’m here.”

“Stay the night,” Jer offers. 

“I don’t have to,” Alex says, all too conscious of the fact that he might be intruding. Neither he nor Jer are real people; they made Phil one of them because they love him, so now none of them are real people. Alex is the one who is the least human of them all, for all that he’s made of magic and Jer is the one who is made of animal and made by fae hands. Alex is the one who plays fast and loose with their boundaries the most. 

“I want you here,” Jer says, and that’s the truth, and nothing but. Jer does not lie much; Alex thinks that he probably can’t lie and then stayed honest rather than deceptive. In some ways, he reminds Alex of nothing so much as he does a gryphon. “Will you actually sleep if I let you out of my sight?”

The answer to that is no, but Alex won’t say that. “I don’t need to sleep.”

He was born somewhere between a hope and a dream, more magic than not. He doesn’t need anything except to actually see Phil. It’s not quite true, and not quite false, and he can always spell Jer to sleep, have his eyes droop and his breathing even out with almost no thought at all when he’s like this. And Jer is tired enough that it would take so easily, except that Alex doesn’t want to do it. Not to someone who matters so much.

“I don’t know what you are,” Jer starts, every syllable measured. “And honestly, I don’t care if you never tell us, but I’m sure that no matter what, you do need to sleep.”

He reaches out for Alex’s hand, still sparking here and there with his magic, and they’re just standing in Jer’s room, holding hands, Jer’s face telegraphing worry even through the exhaustion. Alex should tell him. Should tell both of them, but he’ll have to wait until Phil is better. 

“First thing in the morning,” Alex says, because he isn’t going to believe in anything until he sees Phil with his own two eyes. 

“Didn’t expect anything else from you,” Jer says, agreeing immediately. “I promise, Alex. I know you need to see him.”

“He’s okay, right?” Alex asks. He’s not going to fully believe anything until he gets to see Phil with his own two eyes, but Jer’s reassurance is the next best thing. 

Jer swings their hands together like he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. “As okay as he can be. It seems pretty bad, but he’ll recover.”

Alex lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding, a breath that feels like it’s been trapped in his lungs since that game when Phil went down and didn’t return. “Thank you.”

“Anytime,” Jer says, quiet and deadly serious. 

Alex adores him so much that he doesn’t know what to do with it, his hands overflowing with feelings he can’t express. He tries to, anyway, reaching for Jer’s other hand, stilling the swinging.

“Thank you,” he says again, looking right into Jer’s eyes, and pushing, a little bit, till some of his feelings break off and actually reach their target. 

Jer takes a deep breath when it hits, his eyes shining. Message received. 

* * *

Jer’s in Val d’Or with the human family who loves him. He loves them right back, with a feral, almost rabid sort of ferocity, and from what little Alex knows of them and their interactions, it’s deserved. Alex understands it, too--it’s how he feels whenever he’s with Jer and Phil. 

Phil and Alex, while he’s gone, have decided to host their “we’re all monsters here” meetup anyway, even though they’re missing one of their founding members. The name is mostly a joke, except for when it isn’t. Phil is obviously the one who makes them look respectable, but Alex has the best meetup ideas. They compromise, so rather than hunting down the kind of place that has just a little bit too much magic in it, they’ve driven out to an empty field in more or less the middle of nowhere that just feels right. It’s still not late enough in the year that there’s actually light, so even though they have hours till curfew it’s still dark enough to give them cover. 

Phil looks around curiously. “Where are we?”

Alex shushes him distractedly, already trying to figure out what placement he’ll have to do to give them the best view. This is not something he’s good at, but it’s something he wants to do for Phil, and everything slides together then, so Alex lets his magic ripple off of him in streamers. He’s not a caster; he’s either made of magic or magic himself, which means that he does magic with brute force, shoving things together until it works. Alex chews on his lip for a second before pushing out again; the world ripples and he succeeds, changing the optics of the sky that they’re looking at. 

“What did you do?” Phil asks. 

Alex grins, dusts off his hands, and hops onto the roof of his car, cutting his connection to the magic so he doesn’t have to focus on maintaining it. “It’s only active in about a ten foot circle around us. I used to do it for my siblings all the time. Our very own personal observatory.”

Phil blinks, searching the sky, looking at how Alex has basically made the air around them a magnifying glass, the stars much closer than they have any right to be. “Did you?”

“It was my main party trick for a while,” Alex says, patting the roof of the car next to him so that Phil will join him, which he does, keeping his eyes glued to Alex’s sky, stumbling a couple of times. 

“I can see it both ways,” Phil says, after a long but not uncomfortable silence. “This is really cool.”

“I used to do it for my siblings, so it’s one of the bigger pieces of magic I can do.”

“I don’t know if that’s true. Also, you can tell me to fuck off, if you want, but you and your family…” Phil trails off, biting his lip. He’s looking at the sky and not at Alex, as if it’ll make it easier. 

Alex lays his head against Phil’s shoulder, and tries to draw strength from it. His relationship with his family is the most fraught out of the three of theirs. He wasn’t born from blood and he’s not sure he ever used to be anything before he was born, which means someone somewhere owes a debt and he’s sure it won’t come back onto him, which means that it will probably come back onto his parents. It’s too much for one set of shoulders to carry, when for all intents and purposes he’s just a human child. Obviously, he’s not, but it’s still a lot to carry.

“My existence is going to come back to them,” Alex says, finally. “I could ruin everything.”

“A price?” Phil asks. He still doesn’t know what Alex is, but he must suspect it, if he hit it that much on the nose.

“Yeah,” Alex says, bleakly. “Hard not to feel like I’m cursed, around them. They’ll have to pay it eventually, if they haven’t yet.”

Phil sighs, shifts so Alex can rest against him more easily. “I don’t know if I believe that. They loved you enough that you’re here, right?”

“I guess.”

There’s no point in explaining it to Phil, and there’s no point in ruining their night, so Alex raises an arm and points out the different constellations to Phil instead. When they’re in Alex’s observatory, everything is close. The fire that most stars are made of almost close enough to touch when Alex manipulates their little bubble, and Phil lets the conversation rest, which is almost the best part. Phil doesn’t actually recognize any constellations, so Alex tries to teach him the important ones, or at least to find the North Star, but it’s a work in progress. They stay out until they have to dig out the blankets in Alex’s car, because they do feel cold eventually, and then continue to stay out until they run the risk of running late. 

Alex snaps the magic out of the place that they’re sitting in, and Phil watches as their sky goes back to normal. “How easy is it for you?”

Alex makes a so-so gesture. “I used to be better at it, I think. But it’s not really what my magic is meant for, so it’s not easy.”

“We should bring Jer out, next time,” Phil says. “It’s not entirely his thing, but I think he’d like it.”

“In the summer. Sky’s better then.”

He thinks that’s the end of that, but Phil takes hold of his wrist as he goes to put their blankets back. “If your family is the way you say it is, you have us. Even if they aren’t, you still have us,” he says firmly, his breath making clouds in the air. 

Alex can’t talk around the lump in his throat, but he doesn’t think Phil expects him to, squeezing his wrist once before letting go.

* * *

“What happened out there?” Phil asks, because all he knows is that Alex went to meet with his family and came back like this, a little bit shattered. 

It used to be better to be apart, but now the little injustices of being what he is pile up until they all come spilling out whenever he sees his family. It’s hard for them to see what he really is, and being away from them for so long means that they actually see him now, rather than used to him being a facet of their existence. No one ever told him it would be so difficult, but then again, he never got a choice about his existence, just the knowledge. So he stewed the entire way back to Rouyn, and avoided Phil and Jer because they already worry over him so much, but now they’ve cornered him in his own room. His billet mom wouldn’t have refused them, not when they’re always over anyway.

“Alex?” Phil asks, a gentle prompt. He’s not always gentle, but he’s certainly better at it than both Alex and Jer are.

“You know how you always ask what I am?” Alex asks, picking at the comforter on his bed, and now they both look alarmed. Alex has never willingly brought it up before. 

“You don’t have to tell us,” Jer says, already waving him off. 

“I’ve been thinking about telling you for months.”

Jer scrutinizes him intently, even though he already knows Alex is being truthful. “Fine. But only the parts you’re comfortable with.”

Alex takes a deep breath and doesn’t know what to do with all that air, lets it out without ever making a noise. “Don’t interrupt me; I know it’ll be tempting, but I can’t.”

Phil and Jer eye each other, having yet another of their mental conversations, and it’s Phil who breaks the silence. “Are you sure you want to be telling us this?”

Alex rolls his eyes and flops backwards onto the bed so he can’t see either of their faces. “Will you both please just sit down and listen? I’ve never had to tell this story before.”

They sit down on either side of him, obeying almost immediately. 

Alex starts talking, opening with the one thing everyone has always told him. He was born somewhere between a hope and a dream, and that’s the only introduction he’s ever gotten, when people know. Those are the words he introduces himself with now, and he keeps talking: his parents, the human siblings born after him, the magic, the expectations. Sometime over the course of his wavering description of what he is, he ends up holding hands, Jer with his left and Phil with his right. When he finishes, they’re both quiet for a very long time, and even though his eyes are fixed on the ceiling, he just knows that they’re looking between each other in the way that they have. They know each other well; they have to rely on their eyes, while Alex can push his feelings with brute force, doesn’t realise how much he projects his emotions onto them. 

“You’re real,” Phil says sharply, finally breaking the silence, but he’s squeezing Alex’s hand gently as he does. “Please never say that again; you’re more real than most things.”

“I’m more magic than not,” Alex says, and he refuses to cry about it, but his eyes feel shiny anyway. 

“So am I. In another world, in another deal, you would be like me as well,” Jer says, stroking the inside of Alex’s wrist with his thumb, leaving their fingers intertwined. “You must know, by now, what I was.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Alex says, instantly, still not capable of looking them both in the eye. He’s pleased that Phil said it along with him, the two of them a tandem of fierceness, but he has more to say. “You still have your family; you don’t have to be fae, or what the court first made you into. You can just be what you are because of everything that’s happened to you since.”

“Can’t you do the same thing?” Phil asks, softly, leaning over until he’s actually looking at Alex, until Alex is forced to look at his face. “Don’t we count for something?”

When he says it like that, Alex can’t deny it. They don’t make him more human, they make him more wild, but they give him everything. They’re still the best thing he’s done since he left his family behind. 

“Of course you count,” Alex says, because it couldn’t ever be anything else, even if it feels like he’s swallowed glass admitting it. "You count for everything."

Jer is leaning over him as well, now, and Alex is vaguely reminded of the hospital. “Then don’t be dumb about it,” he says sharply, ignoring Phil’s quelling look. “You’re ours, not theirs. You’ve been ours the entire time. They don’t get to have you.”

On some level, Alex had known that. It still means something else when it’s said out loud, especially from Jer, who cannot lie. He doesn’t want to cry, which he almost certainly will do if he has to open his mouth, so instead he pushes the feelings that he always has at them. Gratitude, adoration, protectiveness. He’s never had anything like this in his life, and he wants them to know that. 

“You too,” Phil says, quietly, the faintest smile on his face. 

* * *

They’re going to be apart after this, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island and Illinois. Alex doesn’t have to try to send anything across the space, the three of them laying like sardines in Phil’s bed, sprawled all over each other. He knows he’s pouring out his anger and irritation and sadness, but he doesn’t know what else to do. It’s hard not to feel like he’s losing them, and it’s hard not to be bitter about it. Hard not to remember that they’re the ones who are there for him, regardless.

“This is stupid,” Jer declares abruptly. 

“What?” Alex and Phil chorus. 

Jer sits up, scrambles to his knees to look at both of them. “We’re all being phenomenally stupid right now. Alex, you can change this, can’t you?”

“I don’t work with fate,” Alex replies, scowling. He wishes, a little bit, but his magic is simple, and built on connections. It has something to do with him being born the way he is, and he’s been using it more since he came to Rouyn, but mostly just for Phil and Jer, so obviously it stays the kind of magic that deals with connections. 

Jer rolls his eyes. “Always looking for the hardest solution, aren’t you? But no, I meant, with the feelings.”

Phil sits up too. “Do you really think?”

They remain as ridiculously in-sync as always; the wave of fondness that follows is tempered by melancholy. They only have so many days left, and soon they won’t even be in the same place to do this, and Alex won’t be there to see it. 

Jer grins mischievously, his eyes brighter than the stars. “There’s no harm in trying. Alex, won’t you?”

“Won’t I?” Alex asks, because he’s two steps behind, still caught up on how much it is going to suck to leave them behind. 

“You were born between a hope and a dream; you can bring us together,” Jer says. 

“It’s kind of brilliant,” Phil says, when Alex turns to look at him, because Jer’s face is slipping and his eyes are bright and Alex isn’t sure if he’s hearing it the way he is because he wants it so much. “You work in feelings, so can’t you make it go every way, with the three of us?”

Alex thinks about it, looking from Phil to Jer, and thinks that he might be able to do it, bring them all together as a single whole. It won’t be the easiest thing in the world, but this is his to lose. 

“I think,” he says slowly, looking at the people he’s made his own, “that I could put us all together. Not just communication, but actually, all together.”

“You say that like we aren’t already,” Phil says, amused. “Do your worst, Alex.”

“Do your _best_ , Alex,” Jer counters, eyes gleaming and head cocked. “I don’t want to be apart any more than you do.”

He still blushes faintly; he knows he projects all of the time, and that they don’t mind, but it’s still a little embarrassing, how obvious he is. But this isn’t hard magic, not for him, not if he pulls the way they make him feel, not if he pulls the way the three of them bleed into each other together. From Phil he borrows the trace in his veins, that he came from something great, and from Jer he borrows the little bit of wildness that he’ll always have, and from himself he borrows the belonging that comes from being with them. Phil is watching him with furrowed brows, Jer is looking at the streams of magic between them, and Alex really needs to focus. 

“I’m going to spin them together. I think that’s the best way to do it.”

Phil blinks. “You can do that?” 

Jer snorts. “Are you really that surprised? He already has tethers; so do we. Or did you miss that we’re all becoming much more like each other than we should be?”

“There’s a difference,” Phil says. “I already knew that we were all connected; I didn’t realise it was like that.”

“Watch,” Alex says, and twists all three threads together. It doesn’t need more than a little bit of direction once he starts it, twisting on its own, the streams of magic thinning into a thread. It’s tiring, but it could be worse; Alex is doing serious magic, tying them all together like this. When it finishes, he throws it back between them like a web, anchoring it to the tethers already between them. 

“I’m going to have to take a nap after this,” Alex warns them. He didn’t realise how much time had passed, but it’s gone from mid-afternoon to late, the room more shadowed than not. “I haven’t activated it yet, but this is the hard part.”

“You’re staying here,” Phil says immediately. 

Alex sags against Jer, because he can leach a little of Jer’s energy to fill his own reserves, and it won’t affect Jer much, and then unblocks everything. The rush of magic makes him dizzy; he may have taken things from Phil and Jer, but it’s his magic that works the initial binding. He loses track of time a little, but he feels it when it settles, because Phil and Jer are in his head and he’s in theirs, or they’re all in their own collective mental sphere, or something. It’s some kind of collective homecoming. It’s Alex’s feelings melting into Jer’s melting into Phil’s melting into Alex’s, an unbroken circle of the way they all feel. No distance is going to separate them, not really, when Alex has put them all together like this. 

It’s still, by far, the best thing he’s ever felt.

**Author's Note:**

> -apparently i have a lot of feelings about the wish baby trope bc i took it back old-school to fairy-tale wish babies, which are complicated and often depressing  
> -sometimes you make your own soul bonds to cope


End file.
